Gaming establishment or casino loyalty programs are a popular way to reward players for playing at a gaming establishment. Gaming establishment loyalty programs typically work in conjunction with player tracking systems to offer incentives to players in exchange for the player's loyalty to the gaming establishment. Such loyalty incentives are often provided and funded by the gaming establishment's marketing department. Current gaming establishment loyalty programs have a limited number of mechanisms or ways to deliver such loyalty incentives to players as part of their gaming experience.
One way to provide loyalty incentives to players is by offering the player a chance to obtain one symbol a day as part of a designated symbol combination, which is associated with a prize. For instance, the Peppermill Casino in Reno, Nev., offers a “Peppermillions” drawing. In the “Peppermillions” drawing, the casino provides the players the ability to collect one symbol a day. Once a day, a carded player can swipe their player card at a designated kiosk to receive a letter in the word “Peppermillions.” The kiosk prints off a letter for the player. The first player who able to collect the printed out letters which spell the word “Peppermillions” wins a prize. Currently, players are only allowed to obtain one letter a day. This type of promotion is known as a collect and win or persistence promotion. Additionally, each winner is entered into one or more drawings to win another prize, such as a television, a car or a cash prize.
There are many drawbacks to such promotional games. The overhead associated with such drawings, ticket printing, and management can be expensive. There is little motivation for the player to stay and play at the gaming establishment after obtaining the letter entry for the day because the player may only collect one letter a day. Further, there is no strategy on the part of the player. The player just has to swipe a player card. The timing at which the player swipes their player card to receive the letter has no bearing on the outcome of which letter they will receive. Additionally, a player must stop playing at a gaming machine and go to a kiosk to enter the drawing. The kiosk awards physical tickets with the letters printed on it, and the player has to keep track of their own progress by saving the physical tickets. The tickets pose theft and security risks if the ticket is not assigned to the player. Additionally, even if the tickets are assigned to a specific player, if the player loses the ticket, the ticket is not replaced. A player may have won the game, but by losing a ticket, the player is unable to prove their win and collect the prize.
Certain known gaming devices include secondary bingo games where each of the bingo cards is associated with a different one of a plurality of reels. The gaming device spins the reels for plays of the primary game and for each respective reel, provides bingo numbers for the bingo card associated with the reel based on the symbols generated on the reel. The bingo games are played on a single gaming machine and do not transfer from one gaming machine to another gaming machine.
Accordingly, gaming establishments are in need of new and exciting ways to provide promotional awards to players as part of their gaming experience.